Port Maitland "On the Grand" Historical
Association

Port Maitland, Ontario, Canada

A birds-eye look at Port Maitland in 1929.
Part 2

By William A. Warnick

Published April 11, 2001
in The Dunnville Chronicle

Last month I wrote about an aeriel picture taken in 1929 of Port
Maitland. My article, described some of the buildings that were on the
eastside of the river in 1929 and what has happened to them. This month
and depending on how long winded I am, maybe for the next two months I
will tell you about buildings on the west side of Port Maitland that are
no longer there.

The west side of Port Maitland has not escaped without considerable
change. The sandy beach running unobstructed by breaks walls can be
found in front and well up river from the former Exchange Hotel, later
known as the Maitland Arms Hotel. The sandy river beach continued to
where today the steel break wall now ends in front of the former Moss
Post Office. The old Exchange Hotel has long since been replaced with a
cinder block building now housing the Port Maitland Apartments.Next
month I will go into some detail about the Exchange Hotel.

Starting at the foot of the pier the first structure we encounter is
Milo Gillap’s snack bar/restaurant. Even Milo’s 1929 snack bar was a
change from what was there only a few short years before. His former
building had been destroyed by flood waters in 1928. The new one shown
in this photo lasted only a few years, burning to the ground on
Christmas Day 1933. It was not a very fancy snack bar by today’s
standard, - a simple wooden structure with a peak roof and a covered
porch facing out onto the river would be an adequate description. It
was located approximately where the driveway is opposite of Joe and
Betty Flatt’s bait and tackle shop. From other photos I have of both
snack bars it is apparent that Milo engaged in a business of selling
Silverwood Dairy ice cream, light lunches, soft drinks and films for his
tourist customers. Both snack bars were welcoming places with benches
placed around and about the exterior of the buildings.

In 1929, there
was no break wall, meaning you could step onto the sandy beach from the
wooden sidewalks placed there for your comfort and conveyance and then
into the warm water of the Grand River.
The Victoria Hotel was situated opposite Milo Gillap’s and where Joe and
Betty Flatt now have their bait and tackle shop. The Victoria sat
majestically overlooking the mouth of the river and the sandy shores of
Lake Erie. Built in 1904 by George Martin a brother of Ed Martin the
owner of the Exchange Hotel, it was described at the time of its opening
as “a building fifty by seventy feet in size, three stories high, and
had twenty bedrooms, two sitting rooms, a dining room eighteen by
twenty, and a large kitchen. It was lighted by forty windows and had
thirty-two doors.” The Victoria Hotel was a place where many social
events were held by tourists and locals alike.

In September 1928, the
ladies of Christ Church Port Maitland gave a dance at the Victoria on
behalf of the building fund. (Their old wooden church had been destroyed
by fire in 1926.) $1.00 was charged per couple or 50¢ extra per lady.
It was noted that Culp’s Orchestra provided the music. The Victoria
never had a liquor or beer licence. That was not problem however as
liquor and beer were not far away.

If the young men and women of Port
wanted to refresh their pallets they only had to visit Fred Vorwerk next
door where he ran his bootlegging establishment. Joe Flatt remembers
he owned Fred’s old home for about five years when Stan Franklin asked
him if he knew about the room where the booze was kept. He didn’t and
once Stan told him where it was he could not get home fast enough to run
upstairs and find the hidden trap door. There he found a room
approximately twenty by ten feet, not quite high enough to stand up in
but big enough to hide the booze from the prying eyes of the law. Joe
and Betty raised their four children in this great old home.

Many of
you will recall your visit to Joe and Betty’s snack bar for great french
fries, fish and chips, hot dogs, hamburgers, milk shakes and to listen
to the juke box on those hot summer evenings. The house is gone now and
has been replaced with a smaller new home more suitable for Joe and
Betty with their family now grown up and almost all married off!

But alas, back to the Victoria Hotel. On January 10, 1944 the Dunnville
Fire Department responded to a fire at the Victoria Hotel at Port
Maitland. The note found in the records simply states. “Hotel burnt to
the ground, used pump of the truck and twelve lengths of hose. Was out
of town four hours.” Viola Franklin told me that she recalls the night
the Victoria burnt down. There was considerable suspicion that it was
torched by some young fellow that arrived the night of the fire then
never seen at Port again. The investigation took the police to Niagara
Fall NY, but the suspected arson was never resolved. Viola tells me
that it was the airport fire department from the flying school that was
able to reach Port Maitland first and successfully save the Vrowerk
home.